On April 20, 2015 Hugh Nystrom appointed Robert Coakley as the Treasurer for a 2016 campaign to become the County Commissioner of Fourth District. Nystrom is Executive Director of Childhelp.

From the Childhelp website,

Since 1995, the fully accredited Childhelp Children’s Center of East Tennessee has served victims of child abuse and neglect through advocacy, treatment and investigation services. 

There were more than 9,000 substantiated cases of child abuse in Tennessee in 2011, illustrating an indisputable need for the advocacy center. The center supports all services to treat and investigate abuse under one roof: medical personnel, law enforcement, child protection investigators and mental health professionals. The professionals all complete their related jobs within the center, reducing secondary trauma to the child and producing reliable evidence to support cases against perpetrators.

The program statistics for Fiscal Year 2013 were 1,296 Children Served (Under Age 18); 60 Receiving Onsite Medical Exam/Treatment; 27 Receiving Counseling Therapy and 674 Recieving Forensic Interviews. 

It is refreshing and encouraging to see an Executive level businessman, a community activist combined with a happily married couple in Hugh and Angelia Nystrom beginning the hard work to give the district representation the district deserves. A Commissioner that will not be laughed at, mocked and joked about behind his back. A Commissioner that is NOT constantly ridiculed throughout Knox County for his May 11, 2013 guilty plea following  his May 24, 2012 anonymous ‘hook up’ in a public park that was observed by law enforcement officers. Ownby and his companion were both arrested and detained in the Knox County Sheriffs Office Detention Facility.

It should be disclosed hat I have not met Mr. Nystrom at the posting of this story.  However, I have many friends that know him, speak highly of him. They are voters in and of the fourth district. I can not vote for Mr. Nystrom because I do not own property or live in the fourth. But, this blog has a lot of readers in the fourth and the 2012 public embarrassment should come to an end. In May of 2012, I agreed with the comments of current Knox County Criminal Court Clerk Mike Hammond, who at the time was an At-Large County Commissioner (meaning he was elected countywide and represented the entire county on the Commission) when he was quoted in other media saying, “Obviously, if these charges are true, and he deserves his day in court, Mr, Ownby needs to resign.” Ownby did not resign. So, in 2016 it will be up to the district to do what Ownby couldn’t bring himself to do.